The people were there in their little country church worshipping God !!! Yet, you want me to believe that the One being worshipped knew what was coming and did absolutely nothing to stop the slaughter. Folks, that's just not rational.

 

I think you will agree with me that the Universal Source(God) is the essence of all that is good. God is good... all the time. The energy that flows from God to us(for those who choose to connect to it) is something that is positive and magnificent. God is Love . Love is God. God does not bring destruction on people. People bring destruction on people. We think bad thoughts, we disconnect from Source Energy(God) and bad things manifest our world.

 

God did not cause Newtown, Katrina, or the Texas massacre. Sick individuals disconnected from God's energy caused those terrible things to manifest.

 

I choose to believe a loving Universal Spirit would never allow, under any condition, worshippers to be slaughtered. Don't blame God. Blame Man. I think if you say God allowed it to happen when he could have stopped it, you almost have to attribute some blame to God. I'd rather not do that.

 

I will take this approach for now. God doesn't cause bad things and God can't stop bad things from happening. If He could, He would. He's God and God is Love. Bad things occur when humans are disconnected from Source. We humans do a good job of getting ourselves out of alignment with that free-flowing, pure energy source known by most as God. In our universe, there is really but two things; Good , and the absence of Good. You make a deliberate attempt to connect to Source or you do not.

 

It was not God that brought that shooter into that church. Someone, I feel, must have been very fearful of such an incident happening and attracted a negative energy to the church. The Law of Attraction is a universal law and it is always at work. Believing that God had a role in it, or at least allowed it to happen, makes absolutely no sense. My concept of Universal Source, or God, says that God is the purest form of Love. God wouldn't have allowed people in the act of worshipping Him to be slaughtered. That goes against what God is. One would have to conclude one of two things. Either God did allow it to happen, which means He can be a very mean, vengeful, and dispassionate God. Or, God had no part in allowing it to take place. He couldn't have stopped it. Stopping such things is up to us. We must choose our thoughts wisely and deliberately. Our focused thoughts manifest things(good and bad) in our physical realm.

 

I suspect many will agree with me that God is not to blame for the Sutherland massacre but will disagree with me about God being able to stop it. Convince me that I am wrong. Why do you think God allowed people worshipping Him to be slaughtered when He could have easily stopped it. I say He wouldn't allow such a thing to occur. If He could have stopped it, He would have. He's God. He's Love.

SF you're correct I agree with you God is not to blame for the Sutherland massacre. But I trust that God knows better than we do the myriad consequences of his intervening to stop what one of his free creations chooses to do. Obviously, if God were in the business of intervening every time one of his creations chooses to do something harmful, we would no longer have free will.

 

Another thing… Take the shooting in a church in Charleston, SC, 9/11, the Holocaust for examples. In my view, a world where these never happened is a better world but my thoughts are not God's thoughts. Furthermore, a world in which these terrible events never occurred is not a world where suddenly free will is nonexistent. So, therefore, I see no reason whatsoever to conclude that God had no choice but to allow these events to happen, apart from simply presupposing that God exists and that, therefore, there must be a reason that he allowed it to happen.

 

I would say the greatest evil the world has ever known was the cross of God’s Son Jesus, which God transformed into the greatest good the world has ever known. I trust that he is doing the same with all these evil tragedies—using it for his purposes. In the end it will be clear that that he has governed our world justly and to his glory. Humanity is very resourceful when it comes to doing evil.

 

I believe in a Final Judgment: No one gets away with anything. “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay” are very happy words for victims of genocide and other forms of evil.

SF you're correct I agree with you God is not to blame for the Sutherland massacre. But I trust that God knows better than we do the myriad consequences of his intervening to stop what one of his free creations chooses to do. Obviously, if God were in the business of intervening every time one of his creations chooses to do something harmful, we would no longer have free will.

 

Another thing… Take the shooting in a church in Charleston, SC, 9/11, the Holocaust for examples. In my view, a world where these never happened is a better world but my thoughts are not God's thoughts. Furthermore, a world in which these terrible events never occurred is not a world where suddenly free will is nonexistent. So, therefore, I see no reason whatsoever to conclude that God had no choice but to allow these events to happen, apart from simply presupposing that God exists and that, therefore, there must be a reason that he allowed it to happen.

 

I would say the greatest evil the world has ever known was the cross of God’s Son Jesus, which God transformed into the greatest good the world has ever known. I trust that he is doing the same with all these evil tragedies—using it for his purposes. In the end it will be clear that that he has governed our world justly and to his glory. Humanity is very resourceful when it comes to doing evil.

 

I believe in a Final Judgment: No one gets away with anything. “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay” are very happy words for victims of genocide and other forms of evil.

 

Thank you for your thoughts. Appreciate them as always.

Yes, I believe He could have stopped it but did not. Certainly not the first time, nor will it be the last.

Thank you for your thoughts. Appreciate them as always.

I appreciate & thank you for your thoughts as well.

if God could, why didn’t he/she? Religion in my opinion (I’m baptized and grade 1-12 Catholic) is a way for people to feel comfortable with death. We make excuses like “it’s his will”, or “it happened that way to save these others”. Our God should be able to know who to save in every situation

I believe God could have stopped it. Why didn't he? I don't know. I wish he would have. I wish my dad the preacher did not die of cancer or that families die in car accidents. I wish God would have stopped the 9/11 attacks, school shootings, or other senseless killings.

 

Why didn't God stop Cain from killing his brother?

 

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do babies die? SIDS?

 

These thigns a called "the problem of evil" and it is documented as being the single biggest reason why people do not believe i nthe Judeo/Christian God, my God, Jesus Christ.

 

I do not have the answer. The Bible gives us clues but does not come right out and give us answers.

Yes

if God could, why didn’t he/she? Religion in my opinion (I’m baptized and grade 1-12 Catholic) is a way for people to feel comfortable with death. We make excuses like “it’s his will”, or “it happened that way to save these others”. Our God should be able to know who to save in every situation

I agree.

 

I’ve also heard the response, “It’s not for us to know.” Or, “ God has His reasons and we wouldn’t understand “.

 

Those answers don’t do it for me but if others find them acceptable I’m fine with that too. To each his own.

 

In addition, the Free Will answers are confusing to me as well, as I’ve mentioned in other threads. An All Knowing God would know well in advance what an individual is going to choose to do, before birth. I would think it is written in stone, already predestined. There’s nothing Free Will about that. Also, an All Powerful and all Merciful God should nip someone like Hitler or mass shooters in the bud beforehand, not even allowing them to be born. Why? The answer is He can’t be both All Good and All Powerful if He permits mass murder, or any murder for that matter to occur when He knows in advance what the choices of the murderers are going to do, (which IMO nullifies the Free Will argument) That would be a huge contradiction in my opinion.

 

Maybe I should just accept the answer, “It’s not meant for us to know”, and leave it at that. Or better, just understand that we’re all here and other than a bunch of theories and reported/recorded revelations, no one actually knows the answers and never will.